History Test Scores Show Little Progress

(The Wall Street Journal) - Fewer than one quarter of American 12th-graders knew China was North Korea's ally during the Korean War, and only 35 percent of fourth-graders knew the purpose of the Declaration of Independence, according to national history test scores released Tuesday.

The results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed that US schoolchildren have made little progress since 2006 in their understanding of key historical themes, including the basic principles of democracy and America's role in the world.

Only 20 percent of US fourth-graders and 17 percent of eighth-graders who took the 2010 history exam were "proficient" or "advanced," unchanged since the test was last administered in 2006.

The news was even more dire in high school, where 12 percent of 12th-graders were proficient, unchanged since 2006. More than half of all seniors posted scores at the lowest achievement level, "below basic."

One bright spot in the data was the performance of African-American and Hispanic students in fourth and eighth grades. The average score of Hispanic fourth-graders jumped to 198 last year, versus 175 in 1994, which helped shrink the gap with their white counterparts. In eighth grade, black students improved to 250 points in 2010 from 238 in 1994.

The overall lackluster performance is certain to revive the debate about whether history and other subjects, such as science and art, are being pushed out of the curriculum because of the focus on math and reading demanded under the No Child Left Behind federal education law.

Sue Blanchette, president-elect of the National Council for Social Studies, a national association of K-12 and college social-studies teachers, called the results disheartening.

"Everyone is going to participate in civic life by paying taxes, protesting against paying taxes, voting, and we must teach our children how to think critically about these issues," she said. "Clearly, we are not doing that."

The US Department of Education administered the history exam to a representative sample of public and private schools, testing 7,000 fourth-graders, 11,800 eighth-graders and 12,400 high-school seniors. The test is scored on a 0-500 point scale, and those scores are broken into "below basic," "basic," "proficient" and "advanced."

Source: The Wall Street Journal